Following up on their GTX 680 Beast and Ultra Charged cards, Point of View / TGT decided to offer even more to the enthusiast bunch. So, if 2GB isn’t enough for you, you should know that PoV / TGT‘s offer now boasts the GTX 680 Ultra Charged with 4GB of memory. Note however that other than the memory, the card is identical to the GTX 680 Ultra Charged, meaning it packs a GPU factory overclocked by 105MHz. Those who crave more can always go for the GTX 680 Beast, whose GPU is factory overclocked by 157MHz.

The high clocks are not a problem thanks to the special triple slot cooling. TGT opted for hand selected low leakage chips in order to provide maximum performance. This ensures that auto-overclocks are maxed out and allows for superior overclocking headroom.

GTX 680 Ultra Charged comes with no special extras – you get a driver CD and a user manual. The box is tough, with a design along the lines of PoV/TGT’s earlier designs. We’d love to see a gift game with premium cards, but it seems like those days are gone.

GTX 680 Ultra Charged 4GB graphics card uses large but efficient cooling. We’ve had the chance to see it in action on the GTX 680 Beast and GTX 680 Ultra Charged 2GB cards and although it did a good cooling job, what we liked the most was its silent operation.

Seeing as how the Ultra Charged 4GB and Ultra Charged 2GB only differ in memory, we expect the cooler to repeat its earlier feat.

The fans are enclosed in a plastic mask, which is easily removable if you want to clean them. The cooler has different fans - the central fan is a 9cm one while the other two are 8cm in diameter. Size isn’t the only difference as the propellers were designed differently as well.

All three fans are connected via a single power connector, so Auto or manual RPM settings introduce changes on all three fans. The three fans make sure that every part of the heatsink is nice and cool.

The heatsink is split in two parts, with five heatpipes going through - two go towards the I/O panel, while three go in the opposite direction.

Heatpipes start on in the pretty large copper base. The base is massive, partly because the cooler is held in place only with four screws, which again go through the base. The design is pretty tough and we didn’t hear/see any vibration due to the number of fans. PoV / TGT used foam-like pads in two places between the heatsink and PCB, in order to ensure a proper and stable fit with no vibration noise.

PoV/TGT strapped the card with a heatspreader for memory and other low profile components on the front PCB. TGT’s backplate can be found in the back, although it doesn’t touch the memory so it’s questionable whether it improves cooling performance. However, it prevents the PCB from warping and definitely makes the card look better.

Reference GTX 680 cards draw power via two 6-pin connectors. Factory overclocked GTX 680 Ultra Charged has one 6-pin and one 8-pin power connector. Point of View / TGT uses five phase PWM design, one phase more than on the reference card.

GTX 680 Ultracharged comes with two dual-link DVI outs, but only one is analog VGA-out capable. The VGA-out requires using the bottom DVI – the one in line with HDMI and DisplayPort connectors. Nvidia made sure not to lag behind the competition so Kepler based cards can run up to four displays simultaneously.

The card has two SLI connectors, which means Quad GPU is possible. Note however that being three slots wide, finding room for four GTX 680 Ultra Charged cards will be a challenge.

We must admit that we had great expectations when it comes to overclocking, since TGT claims it used handpicked low leakage chips. Such chips do better with auto overclocking and tend to deliver higher maximum clocks, but should provide superior overclocking headroom as well.

Overclocking the memory was quite interesting, seeing as how the card has 4GB of memory. Naturally, doubling the number of memory chips doubles the chance of one of them turning out overclocking unfriendly, but luckily, all of them ran flawlessly, even after our 225MHz overclock (900MHz effectively).

We’ve noticed that the Power Target is a bit higher than on the reference design, but the voltage was left at reference values.

Before we move on, we should say that we left the fans in AUTO mode. The cooler ran so well that there was simply no need for it and the fans remained quiet even after our overclocking. Thermal throttling occurs at above 79°C, but the GTX 680 Ultra Charged never exceeded 72°C – that’s right, not even after overclocking.

Squeezing out maximum clocks, and in turn performance, from the GK104 requires a lot of attention. Below is a clear example of when to use the Power Target slider.

Once we overclocked the GPU by +70MHz, we noticed that auto-overclocking figures tend to oscillate somewhat, as you can see on the picture below. Quality GPU and cooling prevent more serious changes but we chose to stabilize the clocks by dragging the Power Target slider far right, allowing for maximum TDP. It worked and, as you can see from the second picture below, the GPU clock is nailed to 1269MHz.

The next photo proves that TGT really chose low leakage chips. Not even 100MHz extra turned out too much for this card. The maximum auto-overclock was 1289MHz, and as you can see from the picture below, the GPU ran at this clock the entire time.

We didn’t have much time on our hands and thus couldn’t check, but we’re pretty sure you could squeeze out a bit more from this card.

If you read the review in detail, you know that the cooling is excellent. First and foremost, it remained quiet when the card was working hard and it didn’t even flinch after our 100MHz (205MHz higher than reference) – golden silence. Note that such performance means we never utilized the cooler to its max, i.e. we didn’t speed up the fans.

Point of View / TGT found a perfect formula for cooling overclocked GTX 680 (GK104 GPUs). There was no secret recipe – massive cooling did the trick.

If you look at the cooling performance, it will be clear why TGT chose it to cool the fastest GTX 680s. The cooler was more than up to the task throughout our tests. We overclocked the core by another 100MHz (205MHz higher than reference) and the memory by 225MHz (900MHz effectively), but the cooler hardly noticed.

The cooling does however have one shortcoming – it takes up three slots. While you may find enough room for SLI or three-way SLI in most rigs, you can just about forget about fitting a Quad SLI setup.

Games don’t seem to notice the doubled memory, but this does not mean that future games won’t benefit from it. The good news is that 4GB of memory didn’t negatively affect GPU overclocking.

The GTX 680 Ultra Charged 4GB graphics card uses low leakage chips handpicked by TGT, and the overclock to 1211MHz (Max Boost clock 1289MHz) confirmed it. Note that the GTX 680 Beast’s Base GPU clock went up to 1223MHz, and we wouldn’t expect anything less from the Ultra Charged cards, provided you’re willing to put some work into it.

The 4GB version goes for €60 more than the 2GB one, but this is not only due to more memory – PoV/TGT’s handpicked low leakage chips provide excellent auto overclocking and further overclocking headroom, making the GTX 680 Ultra Charged 4GB pack one serious punch.

Gigabyte has been busy as of late improving its existing graphics card coolers and designing new ones. Our today’s guest is the company’s HD 7850 OC graphics card, notable for Gigabyte’s WindForce 2x cooler, which promises silence even when the card is working hard. That Gigabyte is ready for non-conventional designs is clear from its GTX 680 Super Overclock card, which comes with five fans and nine heatpipes, but more on that on another occasion.

The card’s name, HD 7850 OC Windforce 2x, says it’s a factory overclocked card. The GPU has been overclocked by 115MHz but the memory was unfortunately left at reference 1200MHz (4800MHz GDDR5). We’ve noticed that many overclocked AMD and Nvidia cards come with overclocked GPUs but reference memory clocks. We’d much rather see overclocked memory because users who buy overclocked cards usually don’t want to mess with any further overclocking, i.e. want their pet juiced out straight out of the box, and quite understandably so.

Gigabyte HD 7850 OC WindForce 2x is on the picture below.

We’re sure you want to know more about WindForce, but before we move onto that part, let us say something about the HD 7850 first.

HD 7850 as well as HD 7870 is equiped with 2GB of memory on a 256-bit memory interface, which will be of much use to gamers running 1920x1080.Compared to Pitcairn XT (HD 7870), Pitcairn Pro comes with lesss shaders (1024 compared to XT’s 1280), and less texture units (64 compared to XT’s 80). Both GPUs come with 256-bit memory interface and 30 ROPs each. HD 7850 launched priced at $249, while HD 7870 cost $349. AMD set the reference clocks for Pitcairn XT at 1000MHz and Pitcairn Pro to 860MHz.

The factory overclock is the culprit for higher GPU temperatures, but the card comes with powerful WindForce 2x cooler, a cooler with two 10cm fans.Each fan makes an airflow of 30.5 CFM. The fans exceed the PCB boundaries but in this case it’s a good thing since they cool heatpipes that stick out beyond the PCB. The heatpipes are in direct contact with the GPU. One of the secrets to quality cooling is that the fans and the heatsink are angled. You can’t tell this at a glance, but once you look at the card from the side, you’ll see for yourself. The angle lowers the turbulence between the two fans. Although the plastic frame seems a bit shaky, it’s actually quite stable. By using low profile fans, Gigabyte made sure that the cooler does not exceed two slots. HD 7850 OC WindForce is about 227mm long and about 120mm tall.

Both fans are on the same power cable and you can manage RPM via any standard tool, including AMD Overdrive. Note however that Auto regulation worked just fine, so we just left it as it is. The card uses 4-phase VRM design, with GIGABYTE's Ultra Durable 2 combination of Solid State Capacitors, Ferrite Core chokesandlow RDS(on) MOSFETs.

Gigabyte 7850 TwinForce card is equipped with 2048MB GDDR5 memory. The GDDR5 memory chips are made by Hynix (model number H5GQ2H24MFA-T2C). They are specified to run at 1250MHz (effective 5000MHz). The chips are cooled by fan air only.

The reference design provides two mini DisplayPort 1.2 connectors, HDMI and a single dual-link DVI out, and the seme setup is used on Gigabythe's card. HDMI 1.4a provides HD audio and supportfor Blu-ray 3D movies. It will simultaneously support three displays, although the third display must be connected via DisplayPort.You may combine the Gigabyte's 7850 TwinForce card with another HD 7850 card from any vendor in CrossFire. Flexible CrossFire bridge helps with reaching the connectors, even though the plastic shroud is in the way.

The card is powered via one 6-pin power connector, which is easily accessible thanks to the cutout in the heatsink.

Gigabyte HD 7850 OC TwinForce 2x graphics card is a factory overclocked card, whose GPU was boosted by 115MHz but the memory left at reference 1200MHz (4800MHz GDDR5). We managed to overclock the GPU higher, to 1025MHz.

We expected a better overclock since the cooler does its job great. GPU temperatures didn’t exceed 56°C at factory clocks, while our overclocking increased them by a single degree Celsius. We left the fan in AUTO mode durin our overclocking because thermals were good and the fan quiet. Increasing the RPM manually didn’t provide for a better overclocking score.

We left the memory at 1200MHz because even the slightest boost of 50MHz caused our system to freeze. In fact, not even a system restart managed to help on few occasions, and we had to resort to throwing in another card and clearing the drivers.

As far as noise goes, fans are inaudible. We didn’t hear them until they exceeded 70%RPM (which was never the case in AUTO mode). When the fans exceed 70%RPM, you’ll hear a very faint buzzing noise. We’re not sure what’s the cause, but it’s most likely the fan vibration causing parts of the heatsink to vibrate as well. Note however that it’s far from loud – in fact, you won’t hear it away from the computer and pretty much never in AUTO fan mode.

Gigabyte HD 7850 TwinForce 2x’s consumption was quite good. Our rig drew up to 240W, which is less than some slower cards from earlier generation. Although we’re looking at a factory overclocked card, Gigabyte made sure that the TDP doesn’t go over 130W.

Gigabyte Radeon HD 7850 OC WindForce 2x (GV-R785OC-2GD) graphics card surprised us with just how quiet it is, whether it’s idle or working hard. Although it’s a graphics card with a 115MHz GPU overclock, WindForce 2x has no trouble keeping it cool and temperature didn’t go over 56°C.

Overclocking results are below average. We could overclock the GPU only up to 1025MHz, while the memory started misbehaving after only 50MHz extra.

Once the fan is sped up over 70%RPM, you’ll hear a strange noise from teh fan, as if the fan occasionally touches some part of the heatsink, but we couldn’t really tell exactly. When running in AUTO mode, the fan never hits 70%RPM, so it will always stay quiet.

Despite such OC results, we really think Gigabyte’s HD 7850 OC WindForce 2x deserved to get our award, since it’s overclocked but silent. The GPU was overclocked from reference 860MHz to 975MHz while the WindForce 2x cooler makes sure to keep it cool. Performance is excellent for gaming at 1680x1050 and 1920x1080.

Gigabyte’s card is some €10 pricier than the most affordable HD 7850, which is definitely justified. So, if you’re looking for an overclocked card with quiet cooling, there’s no reason to overlook Gigabyte’s HD 7850 OC WindForce 2x.

Club3D recently launched its GTX 560 Ti CoolStream OC Edition graphics card that, as the name suggests, comes factory overclocked and strapped with special cooling. CoolStream cooler with two fans should provide superior cooling to the overclocked core and at the same time be quieter than Nvidia’s reference solution.

In fact, CoolStream can be found on Club3D’s GTX 550 Ti CoolStream Super OC Edition that launched yesterday, although with one fan only.

GTX 560 Ti CoolStream OC Edition card ended up overclocked to 880MHz for the GPU and 1760MHz for Shaders. It features 1GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 4100MHz and comes paired up with a 256-bit memory interface. We had a chance to check out GTX 560 Ti’s CoolStream cooler back at Cebit but today we’ll see how it fares aboard the GF114.

The card currently goes for about €214, which is about €5 more than Club 3D’s reference GTX 560 Ti goes for.

The GTX 560 Ti’s ticker is the GF114 GPU, which received plenty of positive acclaim so far and we’ve seen that the card boasts nice performance-per-clock ratio as well. Nvidia set GTX 560 Ti’s reference clocks at 822MHz for the GPU, 1644MHz for shaders and 4008MHz for memory. When the card is idle, the clocks go pretty low – 50.6MHz for the GPU, 101MHz for shaders and 67.5MHz for the memory.

Before we move on to the card, let us remind you that the GF114 is a derivation of GF104, as is evident from the number of transistors (1.95 billion). However, the GF114 packs a few improvements inherited from the GF110

.

Before we show you the pictures, here’s what Club3D has to say about CoolStream technology:

" Club 3D CoolStream features high performance heatpipes that keep the components cool and outperform standard cooling solutions. Paired with a unique fan blade design, it increases airflow while reducing noise. The result is a dramatic increase of performance for your gaming and multimedia experience.

The name derived from Cool as in “cold”, together with Stream as in “flow”. A heatpipe contains fluid, which turns into gas (vaporizes) when it heats up, then it flows to the other end of the heatpipe. In this process, the gas looses the heat and changes back into fluid and returns to the place where it begun, thus creating a “flow” or stream.

CoolStream Technology will be used on Club 3D’s Nvidia and AMD chipset based products. This gives you up to 15% better heat dissipation than standard reference design coolers.

If you expect above the average performance on your Graphic card, Club 3D’s CoolStream Cooling Technology is just the kind of high performance that you have been looking for. Club 3D is currently using CoolStream Technology on HD 6900 + HD 6800, as well as on GTX 460, GTX 560Ti, GTX 550Ti, and will successively expand the range."

Club3D GTX 560 Ti CoolStream is almost 22.9cm long, like the reference 22,9cm (9 inches), and the card is 2 slots wide.

CoolStream cooler comes with 3 heatpipes and two 75mm fans. The fans are very quiet.

As far as video outs go, we have here the classic Nvidia design i.e. two dual link DVIs and mini-HDMI out. Note that only two video outs can be used simultaneously. Nvidia included an HDMI sound device within the GPU, so there is no need for connecting the card to your motherboard’s/soundcard’s SPDIF out to get audio and video via HDMI.

Geforce GTX 560 Ti comes with one SLI connector. This means you can combine up to two GTX 560 Ti cards in SLI mode for improved performance or image quality settings.

The card has two 6-pin PCI-Express power connectors.

Unfortunately, Club3D GTX 560 Ti’s CoolStream OC Edition packaging didn’t come with additional converters or power cables. We really liked the box, especially for beings small and well designed, but we’d love to have seen at least a couple of mini-HDMI-to-HDMI dongles.

Overclocking the GF114 should not be a problem, regardless of whether it’s reference or specially designed GTX 560 Ti. Most GTX 560 Ti cards will run stable at 920+MHz. Club3D’s cooling provides a nice foundation for a healthy overclock and we got to following results. We managed to push the GPU from 880MHz to 970MHz, and the card remained quiet throughout.

Thermals and Noise

As far as noise levels go, the GTX 560 Ti CoolStream’s cooler is almost inaudible when idle, with GPU temperature around 34°C. The GTX 560 Ti CoolStream OC Edition is almost inaudible during operation too. In our case, intensive 3D resulted in GPU temperature of about 79°C, but it’s a pretty good balance between thermals and noise levels since the fan was inaudible throughout.

Conclusion

Club3D recently launched its GTX 560 Ti non-reference card with CoolStream cooling, which was almost inaudible both in idle mode and under workload. We must say that we consider silence to be the prerequisite for recommending any GTX 560 Ti, as there are currently many quality and silent cards such as our today’s sample.

Of course, Club3D decided to make it GTX 560 Ti stand out of the crowd and introduced a factory overclock. So, the card runs at 880MHz (822MHz reference) for the GPU and 4100MHz for the memory (4008MHz effectively). The card has two dual-link DVI outs and one mini-HDMI out. Note however that mini-HDMI-to-HDMI converters aren't included with the card.

Club3D GTX 560 Ti CoolStream Edition currently goes for about €214, which is only €5 more than you’d pay for Club3D’s reference GTX 560 Ti. You can check out the prices here.

In conclusion, Club3D GTX 560 Ti CoolStream OC Edition card is a factory overclocked card that provides extra performance and silence at the same time. The card will chew up 1920x1600 smoothly, regardless of your game of choice and it will definitely be a good choice for those looking for a faithful and silent companion.

MSI has officially launched and showed its newest Radeon HD 6950 card, the R6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition. The new cooler will bring a new fan design and will use the previously seen SuperPipe technology.

The card itself features 1408 stream processors, and clocks are set at 800MHz for the GPU and 5000MHz for memory. MSI will also roll out an OC version of the same card which should run at 850/5200MHz.

The PCB features a 6+2-phase desing and will feature Military Class II components as well as support for "Triple Overvoltage", which means that you will be able to set voltages for GPU, memory and VDDCI. It also comes with a hardware switch on the back of the card that regulates the fan speed for either maximum cooling or lowest possible noise.

As noted, the new cooler features a new "propeller blade" fan that should provide 20 percent more airflow while being 11 degrees cooler and 13.9dB quieter when compared to reference cooler. The fans are cooling a large heatsink that is connected to a copper base via five heatpipes (three 6mm and two SuperPipes 8mm).

The card should launch pretty soon and might reach some shops this month.

Today we’ll briefly get to know Point of View / TGT GTX 570 BEAST, the fastest factory overclocked GTX 570 which is now available. Since Nvidia gave its partners a green light for overclocking, the day of the launch saw many factory overclocked cards. One of the fastest so far was the Point of View / TGT GTX 570 Ultra Charged, which boasts a 810MHz GPU, but the GTX 570 Beast beat it with the GPU core at 841MHz. This means that Point of View / TGT pushed the GPU by 109MHz.

Running at an impressive 841MHz core clock, the new GTX 570 is available in two versions depending on the choice of the cooler. One features a reference cooler and is a bit cheaper than the second version, which comes with a 9mm slim-line AquaCopper water cooling block. We received the first one and you can see it on the picture below.

Thankfully, Nvidia did a great job this time around and managed to get some really good cooling performance. However, since the GTX 570 Beast boasts pretty high clocks, we were afraid it might not be enough.

Measurements show that GPU temperatures during intensive operation are some 10°C higher than at reference clocks, but they won’t go over 90°C. While we didn’t consider the reference fan loud, the Beast fan was clearly audible but again not too loud. Note however that we were pretty satisfied with noise levels taking in account the much higher clocks.

The card comes in a nicely themed box with a unique way of making sure the card is fixed and safe within the box.

The water-cooled GTX 570 Beast will end up with a suggested retail price of €499, while the air-cooled (reference cooler) models is available for €413 here.

The GTX 570 Beast‘s performance is great but the price is high. Thanks to the factory overclock, this card is much faster than the GTX 480, and can hold its own when put up against the reference GTX 580.

Here are some preliminary results – stay tuned as the full review will follow soon.

Factory overclocked GTX 580 cards are on the rise but many Nvidia partners still haven’t launched their fastest cards. Point of View / TGT announced the GTX 580 Ultra Charged, which is our today’s guest, but we must admit we’re still anxious to see the faster, Beast Edition. Although GTX 580 gave Nvidia the single-GPU graphics throne, the fight is far from over, especially since AMD plans its single-GPU, Cayman-based HD 6970 for the next month.

GTX 580 Ultra Charged is factory overclocked to 841MHz for the GPU and 1026MHz (effectively 4104MHz) for the memory. In comparison, reference GTX 580 cards run at 772MHz while the shaders run at twice that - 1544MHz. The reference clock for the 1.5GB of GDDR5 memory is 1002MHz and the memory is paired up with a 384-bit bus.

Geforce GTX 580 is based on a “new” and improved GF100 (GTX 480) chip that now bears the GF110 moniker and it has 512 shaders and all eight clusters turned on, the same number that was possible on a fully enabled GF100 chip.

Point of View / TGT chose to stick with reference cooling for their GTX 580 Ultra Charged, but as you already know this cooler comes with the quite popular vapor chamber. Unlike the GTX 480, the new Nvidia card is much better when it comes to thermals and noise. The TDP is somewhat lower compared to the GTX 480 as the chip was slightly tweaked and the board has better power management. The novelty here is the clock speed throttling logic which reduces clock speeds when an extremely demanding 3D application such as Furmark or OCCT is run. Additionally, the power current regulation circuits regulate the speed of the fan with more precision than before.

With an average selling price of €440 for the cards based on reference speed and listings going all the way to €499, we cannot say it’s really a bargain. GTX 580 Ultra Charged clocks are pretty high compared to the reference ones but so is the price – it’s priced at €520. However, you should know that Point of View / TGT sweetened this deal with a gift game - Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands.

A closer look at GTX 580 Ultra Charged

The card comes with reference dual slot cooling which is improved in comparison to the cooler on GTX 480 cards. With help from the vapor chamber technology, the cooler is quiet, at least for a high-end card. Vapor chamber technology has been around for a couple of years, but it was usually reserved for non-reference boards so this is the first time we see it as part of the reference design.

Thanks to this tech, Nvidia can get rid of its heatpipe solutions such as the one on GTX 480 (picture below). You can also see that the difference between reference and Ultra Charged’s cooler is only in the sticker.

The vapor chamber method is simple - a chamber filled with of a water-like liquid evaporates and transfers the temperature from the GPU. Once the gas cools down, it “rains” back down and the process starts all over again. As a result, the card’s temperature dropped from an average 94°C on the GTX 480 to 85°C on GTX 580 cards.

GTX 580’s PCB design hasn’t changed much from the GTX 480, but there have been improvements in power regulation circuitry. The GTX 480 has a hole in the PCB below the fan, but the GTX 580 has no holes in the PCB or the cooler’s metal block.

Nvidia added Advanced Power Management, a feature which monitors consumption and performs power capping – all to protect the graphics cards from excessive power draw.

GTX 580 is the same size as Geforce GTX 480, measuring 10.5 inches or 26.67 centimeters in length. It has one 6-pin and 8-pin power connector and a 244W TDP.

Video engine didn’t change; it is the same as on GF100, Fermi chips. You still have a maximum of two display supported. GTX 580 Ultra Charged comes with two DVI ports and a mini HDMI where you could use a mini-HDMI dongle to get a proper HDMI port. We think that consumers deserve to get HDMI and DisplayPort on any high-end card and we're not thrilled by the lack of the latter.

GTX 580 Ultra Charged outruns the reference GTX 580 by about 6.5% at 1920x1080. The same card proves that it’s the fastest single-GPU card on our test and it does great at 2560x1600 as well, scoring a playable frame rate. As for the GTX 480, GTX 580 Ultra Charged outpaces it by up to 29%.

Dirt 2

Metro 2033

Overclocking, Consumption and Thermals

Geforce GTX 580 packs plenty of OC potential, with many partners jumping on the OC ship. While the reference GTX 480 runs at 772MHz for the GPU and 1002MHz for the memory, our factory overclocked Point of View / TGT GTX 580 Ultra Charged runs at 841MHz for the GPU and 1026MHz for the memory.

The memory on GTX 580 Ultra Charged has only received a minor boost but the GPU runs 69MHz faster than reference. This will be enough for about 7% better gaming results, but it must be said that there’s additional room for overclocking. In fact, our further overclocking resulted in 14% better performance when compared to the reference card.

Overclocking GTX 580 cards will depend on core voltage and overclocking results will vary from card to card. TGT team leaves room for additional overclocking on all its cards, and the good thing about PoV/TGT OC cards is that GPU voltage has been increased by default, which will help with overclocking results.

We recently tested a reference GTX 580 (1025mV default voltage) and managed to overclock the GPU to 855MHz. This is only 14MHz higher than GTX 580 Ultra Charged’s clock, but we didn’t mess with voltages or change the fan speed from AUTO mode.

Point of View / TGT pushed the default voltage to 1125mV, resulting in increased stability at higher clocks. Without meddling with voltages or changing the fan speed from AUTO mode we managed to push our today’s test subject’s GPU to 888MHz and the memory to 1150MHz (4600MHz effectively). Upping the voltage to 1138mV didn’t result in additional overclocking.

Higher factory clocks at the same time mean that the card will consume more compared to the reference card.

FurMark test is not quite favored by Nvidia’s driver and you’ll have to manually disable throttling or else the card will downclock on its own. Our consumption measurements show about 55W higher consumption compared to the reference card. The following results were recorded after we disabled Nvidia’s throttling mechanism.

During Aliens vs Predator test our rig consumed about 425W with the reference GTX 580 and about 473W with GTX 580 UC. Strangely enough, the same scenario with GTX 480 resulted in only 410W, which doesn’t quite concur with the GTX 580’s touted lower consumption. Nevertheless, we decided to publish the results as they were.

The fan isn’t too loud during intensive gaming and we can finally say that we’re pleased with the noise levels. Speeding up the fan didn’t contribute to overclocking headroom.

Conclusion

Point of View / TGT is definitely keen on showing everyone they mean business, and the GTX 580 Ultra Charged stands as proof of this. This is one of the first factory overclocked GTX 580 cards and its clocks are pretty high compared to the reference ones. While the reference cards run at 772MHz for the GPU and 1002MHz (4008MHz effectively) for the GDDR5 memory, Point of View / TGT’s GTX 580 Ultra Charged comes with a GPU clocked at 841MHz and memory at 1026MHz (4104MHz effectively).

Thanks to the factory overclock, the card ran about 7% faster in our test games and not only that – we further overclocked it and got another 7% boost. Compared to the GTX 480, GTX 580 will provide about 22% more muscle. The card comes with reference dual slot cooling that’s pretty quiet for a high-end graphics card, especially if it’s the fastest single-GPU around. Idle operation is even quieter.

The card currently goes for about €525, here. Point of View / TGT sweetened this deal with a gift game - Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, although we’d rather see some other, more demanding game, which would’ve put the GTX 580’s potential to good use. If GTX 580 sounds nice then you’ll love Point of View / TGT’s GTX 580 Ultra Charged and if you crave top performance, this is the card for you. Having said that, it might be wise to wait until the second half of December when Radeon 6900 series hits the shelves, if for nothing else then for the price adjustments.

Intel has shown off the overclocking potential of its upcoming Sandy Bridge processor to a group of journalists at the IDF.

The sample in question was a K-series part, with an unlocked multiplier and Intel managed to push it all the way to 4.9GHz on air cooling. However, Intel did not disclose the stock clock of the processor used in the demo.

An Intel rep told journalists that the OCed sample managed to outperform a 12-core Opteron in Cinebench, which bodes quite well for Intel, although it sounds a bit overly optimistic.

VR-Zone believes that Intel used a Core i7 2600K, with a stock clock of 3.4GHz, so it turns out that the CPU was overclocked by 45 percent with a box cooler. With aftermarket coolers, the processor should be able to go over 5GHz.